The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve been on the border. We need a fix.
I came to U.S. legally, and as a lawman, I’ve seen lax policies lead to tragedies.
The issues of illegal immigration and enforcing the law are personal to me.
I was born and raised in Mexico, and I’m a career lawman. I came to America legally when I was 17 and joined the Atlanta Police Department to pay for college. It turned into a career. I spent years on high crime and drug task forces, and eventually, I served 17 years as chief of police in Doraville, a city just northeast of Atlanta.
Prior to becoming chief, I was a captain in the Doraville Police Department. One of our young officers was murdered in the line of duty. He was a good kid. His family had come to America from Colombia, he’d grown up in Doraville, and all he ever wanted was to serve as a police officer.
At the time, the hunt for his killer was the largest manhunt in Georgia history, and I served as the lead investigator. We made an arrest and got the confession.
The perpetrator was 18-yearold Bautista Ramirez — an illegal immigrant from Mexico. He was given a life sentence, but he’s still eligible for parole.
That heinous killing shook our community. Now, another heinous killing has shaken Athens. A 22-year-old nursing student was killed while on a run Thursday morning, a “crime of opportunity.”
The suspect in her death, Jose Antonio Ibarra, is a Venezuelan. ICE officials confirmed Sunday that Ibarra unlawfully entered the country in 2022 and was paroled and released for further processing.
There’s always going to be evil on the streets, but these crimes were preventable.
Unfortunately, too many so-called “leaders,” at every level of government, keep supporting policies that allow criminals to come into our country, commit crimes, stay here and repeat the cycle.
Let’s start with the federal government. In addition to my time as a lawman, I spent 40 years in the Army National Guard, enlisting as a private and retiring last year as a major general. I deployed to the border numerous times under multiple administrations.
I can tell you from experience, President Joe Biden’s border policies have made things worse. He halted construction on the wall, ended Remain in Mexico, the policy requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date, and reinstituted catch and release. We’ve all seen the results. More than 7 million unvetted illegal immigrants have crossed our border since he took office.
The president’s response? He’s done more to crack down on states trying to act than to secure our border. Despite what politicians may tell you, there’s no bumper sticker slogan that will secure the border once and for all, but there are obvious starting points. End catch and release, bust up the cartels, reinstate Remain in Mexico and resume construction of the wall, for starters.
It also goes without saying that we must do more to end sanctuary cities, and we must vote out the lunatics who support them.
I’m calling on the Georgia Legislature to immediately pass a bill stating that any illegal immigrant arrested in our state for a violent crime should not get bond under any circumstances. And any illegal immigrant convicted of a crime should not be eligible for parole or early release; they should be immediately deported when their complete sentence is served.
I’m also calling on our state’s U.S. senators — Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — to introduce this legislation at the federal level. How many more innocent lives must be lost? How many more families and communities must have their world turned upside down?
This is a logical, long overdue step that will keep criminal aliens behind bars where they belong and save lives. The time to act is now, before another tragedy strikes another family, and we must get it done.
Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King is the first Hispanic elected to statewide office in Georgia. He is a former Doraville police chief and retired major general in the Army National Guard.
A bill that would remove a significant restriction for drug treatment centers in Georgia is making its way through the state Legislature.
In December, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote about a decades-old provision in the state’s zoning code that forces drug treatment centers to wait anywhere from six to nine months before approval. The AJC found examples where facility operators had lost large sums of money while waiting to go through the zoning process, and identified at least one center that didn’t open at all because of the restrictions.
Last week, the Georgia House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to approve a bill that would strike down this longer waiting period. In all, 161 state representatives voted for the legislation, and five voted against it.
Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, a co-sponsor on the bill, said the bill is a step in making sure that addiction is treated like any other disease.
“We need to change that stigma of ‘we don’t want those kinds of people in my community,’” Cooper said. “Those people are our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews, our friends at church.”
Adam Kaye, a real estate lawyer, brought the issue before lawmakers in recent months after his client encountered the long waiting period when trying open a drug treatment center in Fayette County. The AJC spoke
to several representatives for drug treatment centers in Georgia, and found that enforcement of the waiting period is spotty: some counties and local governments do not enforce the statute, while others do.
The AJC couldn’t identify the reasoning for the longer waiting period restriction, which was added into the state’s zoning code in 1998. Kaye and other proponents for drug treatment centers said they believe the statute is reflective of the not-in-my-backyard attitude that often comes with trying to open a facility in a new area, and questioned whether the restriction runs counter to the state’s present-day agenda of expanding treatment for mental health and substance abuse.
The months-long waiting period that’s on the books may also violate federal laws that are designed to protect the rights of people in recovery for substance abuse. Two legal experts said they believe the existing statute would be extremely vulnerable if it were ever challenged in court.
Rep. Dale Washburn, R-Macon, the bill’s primary sponsor, said one of the reasons there’s been such little opposition to the bill is because removing these extra restrictions will bring the state’s zoning code into compliance with federal law.
“We think it’s the right thing to do, that these types of facilities should not have extra burden in terms of getting approval, and we also believe that the state of Georgia should comply with federal law,” Washburn said.
The typical property that’s going through the rezoning process must wait anywhere from 15 days to 45 days; under this bill, drug treatment centers would now be subject to that standard waiting period.
The bill must now go through the Georgia Senate before landing on Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk. Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, who is co-sponsoring the bill, said she is hopeful it will pass this Legislative session.
“I’m glad this zoning obstacle came to our attention, based on a real world example of why it could be a barrier,” she said.